I suppose that at the end of the day, Blizzard (and not us) has the numbers how many people they are actually losing and how many of those "I have 10 chars, transfering them all costs 250, so I rather quit" cases actually exist.

Because if they would be losing people in abundance over this, the fee would be gone.

I see it that way: Fee gets removed. Suddenly a million people transfer "just because they can". The staff that they have may not be able to handle this in a decent amount of time (Even if it takes a minute to transfer a char...that is a MILLION minutes.) Suddenly people cannot play their character for a week or so because of insane transfer queues. So Blizzard needs to hire more people. Staff costs, staff needs to be trained. Staff makes mistakes.

Just think for a second that there juuuust might be another reason than "They are lazy, greedy Bastards".

As for the title of the thread:

WoW with a transfer fee: 10 million subs
Rift with no transfer fee: 300 000 subs

But WoW is hurt?

are you seriously suggesting that staff are involved in the transfer process? dont be ridiculous, the only point where there is any human involvement is if there is a problem, and these just go into the normal ticket process. the automated process take seconds (probably micro-seconds) because it is just either a) an update of data "in place" to redirect the character to the new server or b) a transfer of character data from one server to another. it depends on how Blizzard have structured their data. either one is quick and simple, in IT terms.

and you point about how many people they are losing is questionable as well. they can see the numbers for how much money they make from transfers; that is a solid known number, and it represents almost 100% pure profit. understanding how many people they are losing because of paid transfers is far more difficult to quantify, since it would depend on angry customers that are leaving providing solid and reliable feedback on why. especially with WoW players, where from what i can see a lot of people actually stop playing some time before they cancel their subscriptions (especially if they are long time players).

When challenging a Kzin, a simple scream of rage is sufficient. You scream and you leap.

Over the last 10 years, Blizzard has taken over $10bn from MMO players. Take a look around your game...do you see $10bn worth of content available to you? Do you see even a tiny fraction of that in relevant content? Now ask me again why I dislike what Blizzard has done to the MMO industry.

I agree with most things that've been said. I personally have spent nearing £1000 on World of Warcraft subscriptions and services. I don't mind paying my subscription fee, that's all cool. But where the hell are the multi-buy discounts? The loyalty discounts? Blizzard are doing old fashioned business and I hope to the lord that it's going to reach maturity soon enough.[COLOR="red"]

The game has peaked and in cata blizzard focused too much on getting new players, and not enough on keeping old players. They know this, and this is a current problem for the game. Blizzard needs to do something to help players stay in the game and keep progressing and having fun. I'm not in a situation to transfer, but if I had to I would quit. I had to transfer in cata and had to leave my 3 85 alts behind that I enjoyed playing. I'm not going to spend $75 on them to come over to my new guild to participate with on alt runs. If I have to transfer again, because of whatever reason, I will be quitting and Blizzard will know why, but there are many people out there that quit and do not state why.

Blizzard needs to implement a free transfer monthly for each character, or a more friendly/affordable solution to transfer multiple characters. People like Mr. Black and White above seem to think that just because people can, they will. Sure a few may transfer because they finally get the chance (and man they will be having more fun), but the fact is many will stay where they are playing with their guild. And sure keep a fee for people that don't want to wait in a transfer queue or for the month wait to expire.

Something needs to happen.

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 11:41 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl

are you seriously suggesting that staff are involved in the transfer process? dont be ridiculous, the only point where there is any human involvement is if there is a problem, and these just go into the normal ticket process. the automated process take seconds (probably micro-seconds) because it is just either a) an update of data "in place" to redirect the character to the new server or b) a transfer of character data from one server to another. it depends on how Blizzard have structured their data. either one is quick and simple, in IT terms.

and you point about how many people they are losing is questionable as well. they can see the numbers for how much money they make from transfers; that is a solid known number, and it represents almost 100% pure profit. understanding how many people they are losing because of paid transfers is far more difficult to quantify, since it would depend on angry customers that are leaving providing solid and reliable feedback on why. especially with WoW players, where from what i can see a lot of people actually stop playing some time before they cancel their subscriptions (especially if they are long time players).

Transferring is hardly a mandatory part of the game. Certainly I've done it before, and was happy to pay for the few times I needed to. However with the new CRZ's and ability to simply group up with RealID friends on the fly, the need to transfer is next to none now.

No I think the server is necessary, I don't like seeing people transfer easily between servers the second they don't like the one they are on.

And why not? Because you rather people not have fun and quit the game?

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 11:45 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Syridian

Transferring is hardly a mandatory part of the game. Certainly I've done it before, and was happy to pay for the few times I needed to. However with the new CRZ's and ability to simply group up with RealID friends on the fly, the need to transfer is next to none now.

There are many people in this game who are in guilds or situations where they fall apart. And now they are stuck to choose pay $25 and take a chance with a new guild, or quit. And you guys feel like they should quit. God I'm lucky my guild is still running strong even with a few people leaving during heroic progression. Pathetic.

I have 12 characters spread across different realms. I agree it is overly expensive, but I don't play any more.

This is actually the exact reason I quit WoW and disbanded my raid team roughly a month ago.
The server we had been playing on was literally dead for recruitment, advertising around the clock and nobody was inquiring, so we decided a server change would be the best idea.
Well me and the other officers funded everything in the guild bank with our alts, so to keep resources in the guild we would have had to move multiple characters. One of the officers wanted to move all of his characters from the server because he has every prof spread across them, and it was going to cost him £120. I find that fucking ridiculous, a game we've been playing for 6 years paying monthly for (6 years @ £18 a quarter = Roughly £432, plus expansions along the way brings it up to £548, never mind how much money he and I have spent on other features of the game including moving characters before.) Well, when we realized how much money it was going to cost us we just decided it was money we could spent buying other games, and called it quits.

It's honestly ridiculous, they are overcharging for what is more than likely now an automated process.

It's called a "cool down" where you can only do it so many times a week/month.

Hell even once a year for free would be awesome.

To OP - No, I did not leave because of transfer fees - but the whole time I played it was a thorn in my side that bothered me. Because I was somewhat newer to organized game playing when I started wow, it took me a year to realize I picked a shit ass server for end game type progression. I refused to pay anything to transfer off of a server that had no warning as I joined telling me how bad it was or how not-serious all the guilds on it would be.

So again, no OP I didn't leave wow because of server transfers fees - but it sure as hell is part of the reason I'll never be back.

P.S. I don't put memes on here anymore because I do not want to be banned, but there are many posts on this thread that are the epitome of the futurama - Fry "Shut up and take my money" meme.

I will give you my reason why i refuse paying Blizzard for a transfer:

Ive been playing since early WoW and my server has always been alive. I quit the game for three months and started it again and suddenly, servers dead. I remember when my shity computer hacked a little at the beginning because i entered Orgrimmar, now its lagfree because theres nothing there. NOTHING. Entered the forums and i saw an old active thread about dead servers and Blizzard not giving a crap.

Last edited by naturetauren; 2013-01-19 at 12:36 PM.

OP spells at Ashran? Based on faction population? Yes, WODs gonna be the most awesome expansion ever! Propably gonna hit under 4 million sub mark.

Eventually, when the subs go down, they will come up with something cheaper to keep people from quitting the game.

As I find any of these services to expensive, ideally, what I would like to see, is something like a free faction or race change on your server every 1-3 months or so. This would balance out the world much more. And although we have x-realm these days, Orgrimar or Stormwind can feel very sleepy on some servers. The only option now is to pay that 25$ or 20€. That feels a little much considering the amount of money people already payed for the game.

Another option could be that every x-months of payment gives you a credit towards a race/realm/faction change. Lets say every 6 months is worth 1 change a character.

A 3rd option could be making a realms major city Looking for Group chat visible for battlegroups, so everyone can easy join battlegrounds or low level raids.

It should be expencive to transfer characters! Otherwise servereconomies would be ruined by overexploiting faction transfering and server transfers, not to mention making it even easier to guildbounce. Either that or making them free but on a 6 month cooldown just to make sure people dont overuse it. I do agree that they could do a better job at trying to keep servers balanced though. But this is also in the hands of the players - problem is that the general public of players is way to egoistic and rather would be spoonfed than actually working their way up and making their own server attractive for others to join.